1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a recording apparatus which is represented by a facsimile machine, a printer, or the like. The invention particularly relates to a recording apparatus including an ink absorbing member which absorbs ink which is uselessly ejected outside a recording medium (hereinafter called “uselessly ejected”) from a recording head.
2. Related Art
Hereinafter, an ink jet printer is specifically described as an example of a recording apparatus represented by a facsimile machine, a printer, or the like. There is an ink jet printer which makes it possible to perform so-called borderless recording. In the borderless recording, a recording sheet is recorded with no blank spaces at four sides in order to obtain an output result equivalent to silver print.
In the ink jet printer capable of performing such borderless recording, ink is also discharged (uselessly ejected) onto a region beyond the edge of the recording sheet. Therefore, recesses are formed on a sheet supporting member at a region on which ink is uselessly ejected. The sheet supporting member is provided so as to be opposed to an ink jet recording head and defines a distance between the recording sheet and the ink jet recording head by supporting the recording sheet.
The ink absorbing member which absorbs the uselessly ejected ink is arranged on each recess. Further, a discharge hole from which ink absorbed by each ink absorbing member is discharged downward is formed on the bottom of each recess. With this configuration, ink absorbed by each ink absorbing member is discharged onto a waste liquid tray from the discharge hole. The waste liquid tray is arranged at the lower side of the recesses.
Regardless of the borderless recording, a uselessly ejected region on which ink is uselessly ejected is assured in the ink jet printer in many cases (for example, useless ink ejection hole for flushing (empty discharge) operation). Then, ink uselessly ejected on the useless ink ejected region is discharged onto the waste liquid tray in the same manner.
The ink absorbing member which absorbs ink is arranged in the waste liquid tray. Ink is kept in the waste liquid tray so as not to leak the ink from the waste liquid tray even when the apparatus is tilted (for example, JP-A-2004-9700).
There are pigment-based ink and dye-based ink as ink discharged from the ink jet recording head. However, in the case of the pigment-based ink, the permeability into the ink absorbing member is not preferable due to the nature thereof. Therefore, in some cases, ink does not sufficiently permeate into the ink absorbing member and the ink solidifies on a surface of the ink absorbing member. Further, ink is gradually deposited on the surface of the ink absorbing member when the situation is repeated.
Then, as an amount of ink deposited on the surface of the ink absorbing member is increased, the deposited ink reaches to a back surface of the recording sheet supported by the sheet supporting member in time, resulting in contamination of the back surface. This may incur a risk that the recording quality is significantly deteriorated. Such problem will happen not only in the ink absorbing member arranged on the sheet supporting member which supports the recording sheet, but also in the ink absorbing member arranged at the lower side of the sheet supporting member.